


Her last performance

by Ethel09



Category: White Collar
Genre: Character Bashing, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-10
Updated: 2015-04-10
Packaged: 2018-03-22 04:50:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3715711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ethel09/pseuds/Ethel09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In difficult moments, June is always there for Neal. Set during ‘Au Revoir,’ with references to ‘No Good Deed.’<br/>A big thanks to ayam, my beta reader.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Her last performance

The church where Neal Caffrey's funeral service was taking place was incredibly overcrowded. All the White Collar staff was there, but also many agents from other departments. And unknown people as well. Some women whose face was sometimes hidden behind a black mourning veil or by a large hat, men with hats as well, or who had discreetly sat at the rear of the church. The LEOs attending the service were obviously doing their best not to look at them. It was like a strange, brief truce in the everlasting chase.

June was sitting in the first row, of course, tears rolling freely down her cheeks. She had always been a good actress, and Byron had sometimes relied on that talent for some of his cons. It wasn't hard to feign devastating sorrow, even less so as any funeral always reminded her of Byron's, and since she didn't really know when she would see Neal again.

The hardest had been not to show her tension and inward recoil when Peter Burke had put a comforting hand on her shoulder. He was now sitting on another bench on the first row. She gave him an icy glance, knowing that he was too engulfed in his own devastation to notice anything of his surroundings.

Let him grieve, she thought with a kind of vengeful satisfaction. And think about all the years he'd spent with Neal without ever really knowing him.

But was the man even able to learn anything from pondering over that past? How had he missed for so long that to Neal, he had been the embodiment of the mythical hero that his mother had forged for him in his childhood, the cop of stellar honesty? How had he taken for grantedall what Neal had done to earn his trust and friendship, from the very beginning of their partnership ? Was it that common for him to have convicts he had put behind bars risking their life for him ? Of course, Neal had been grateful that Peter had pulled some strings to have him put into a well-monitored White Collar cellblock. But Peter was also the one who had made him spend more than three years of his youth in prison, as safe as the place was. And during the three other years they had worked together, it seemed that he had never realized how unlikely was proud, independent Neal's acceptance of his controlling and often demeaning ways.

For a long time, June had rather liked the FBI agent. She was not blind to his self-righteousness and absolute lack of tact or insight, but she saw him as someone who really had the young man's best interest at heart.

Until the day she had found Neal alone in his flat, shoulders shaking from uncontrolled but silent sobs. She hadn't said anything; she had wrapped him in her arms as she had done at Kate's funeral, and some other times as well, when the idea that his love was gone for ever had become suddenly unbearable for him. She knew she was maybe the only one, now, with whom he sometimes dropped the mask, and let see the wounds hidden behind the devil-may-care facade.

Sitting at his side, she had waited a little, asking softly what was wrong, and suddenly Neal, in broken sentences, had blurted out the whole story: his pact with the Dutchman, his father's forged testimony, the heist hastily performed as the price to pay for Peter's freedom. And the judgmental, hurtful words Peter had just issued after learning the truth.

"I did it for him, June, but he said… that I've done it because I couldn't help it… because I'm a criminal and always will. He's right I suppose. It's my father's blood."

There was something so desperate in the way Neal had said these last words that June felt a pang of deep sorrow, suddenly followed by a wave of fury burning her chest. How had this man dared to say such things, after Neal had risked his freedom for him, his life even, and more than once? Had he already forgotten how terribly disappointed Neal had been in his father, he who had said to her once that he couldn't know who he was if he didn't know who his father was?

She had to undo the damage, or at least part of it, if she could.

She put her hands on each side of Neal's face and she looked deeply and gently into the blue eyes, bright with tears for once, and not with impish humor.

"Neal, you're not your father. You've never killed anyone. You'd never let someone who'd helped you be charged and imprisoned for something you did."

She paused, and then added firmly, "And Peter Burke is not the great man you thought he was for so long, dear. He's not a bad man, but I think he's just proven that he cares more about the way he sees himself, the irreproachable FBI agent, than about you. How dare he accept the benefits of what you did, and then blame you for it with such cruel and unfair words? He's just behaved like a self-righteous hypocrite."

Neal looked surprised. He'd never heard June's voice trembling with anger like that.

"And what about the way he hid from you that he was the one who had led Collins to Cap Verde? Posing as the brave and selfless rescuer? If you hadn't learnt it from Elizabeth by accident, he'd never have told you the truth."

"Probably," sighed Neal, "He hardly ever admits a mistake." He was calm and collected, now, but his eyes were still tired and defeated.

June paused a little again, then said strongly,"You, one the other hand, always fully accept the consequences of your actions. There are different ways of being honest Neal, and on the moral level, if not on the legal one, you're a far more honest man than Peter Burke."

Neal didn't answer, but she saw that her last words had made an impression. He remained silent for a while, seeming deep in thought. Then he smiled weakly and simply whispered, "Thank you, June."

"As I already said to you once, you're one ina million, Neal. Don't ever let anyone make you think otherwise." And she kissed him on the cheek, softly. He was like the grandson she'd never had, and she knew that she'd always be there for him.

 

That's why when, some weeks later, he had come to see her, the familiar sparkle back in his eyes, to ask her help with the greatest scam he had ever pulled, she hadn't hesitated for a minute. It was time for Neal to spread his wings, to escape from the Pink Panther and from all his past, Peter Burke included.

So, when Mozzie had called her, she had come to the hospital, claimed the "body" and organized the funeral. Elizabeth Burke had proposed her help, but June had declined the offer, on the excuse that it was too stressful for a pregnant woman and that Neal had left a letter asking her to be in charge in case something happened to him.

June suddenly hid her smile behind her handkerchief. She'd just spotted Mozzie, sobbing pathetically in a large scarf. She knew he'd find a way after the service to visit her and give her some way to contact Neal. She couldn't wait to find out where he had chosen to start his new life as a free man.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't see why Mozzie and June wouldn't have known from the beginning that Neal's death was a fake. Why would Neal inflict such pain on them ? Both of them certainly do know how to keep a secret. Plus, he needed some help for his plan.
> 
> And if I had to choose the person on whose shoulder Neal would perhaps allow himself to cry, it certainly wouldn't be Peter. I've always loved June. She was the first and the only one trusting Neal completely, apart from Mozzie. She immediately opened her house to him, giving him the true home he’d never had since he was three. She was always very supportive of him. In ‘Home Invasion,’ she was the one convinced that Neal hadn't run and who strongly asserted that to Peter, whose trust was far more dubious. And she was obviously also very worried about him.  
> She's the one who told Neal as a farewell not to forget that he was "one of a million." So I think she's the one who knew him the best, at least as well as Mozzie did, for she could guess the self-doubt mixed with Neal's awareness of his own brilliance. She is kind, wise, and with that spark of mischievousness that makes them understand each other so perfectly.  
> I wish there were more scenes with her and Neal in the series.


End file.
